BEN Blakeley told Oxford Crown Court he started praying when he realised he had killed Jayden Parkinson.

The 22-year-old today described his ex-girlfriend falling over after he grabbed her round the neck on a footbridge near Upton on December 3.

Choking back tears, Bkakeley has described the moment he grabbed Jayden Parkinson round the neck.

The defendant said the former couple were on a foot bridge in a partly wooded area between Upton and East Hagbourne in the evening of December 3.

He told the jury they were kissing when he asked Jayden if she had really been lying about sleeping with someone else while staying at One Foot Forward.

He said: "She just let go of me and looked down."

His barrister Richard Benson QC asked: "So what did you do?"

Blakeley said: "Grabbed her."

Mr Benson: "Grabbed her where?"

Blakekey: "Round the neck.

"I didn't grab her that hard. I've grabbed her harder than that before.

"I was saying 'tell me the truth, tell me the f**king truth'.

"I let go and she fell backward off the bridge on to the floor, on to the ground."

Blakeley clasped his hands behind his head and had to be told by Judge Patrick Eccles to face the jury.

The defendant said: "I don't want people seeing me crying."

Asked what happened next to Jayden he said: "When she hit the ground I, um, I laughed. I laughed and I thought she was joking. I said 'get up'.

"Obviously she didn't get up and she was making noises and that.

"I hear them ***king noises in my head."

Blakeley said he held a mobile phone over the 17-year-old’s face to see if she was breathing, but realised she was not.

He said: "I just sat there, I was upset, I was praying, I was f**cking upset.”

Blakeley said he did not ring the emergency services because he thought it was "too late".

He told the jury he moved Jayden's body under a tree and covered her with a branch and left her, telling her he would come back.

Blakeley admits manslaughter and perverting the course of justice, but denies murder.

The trial continues.

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